The present invention relates to a rear vehicle-body structure of a vehicle, which comprises an openable roof provided at an upper portion of the vehicle, a hook to be engaged with or disengaged from an engaged portion provided on a vehicle-body side, such as a striker provided at a front header, and a storage partition provided at a rear portion of the vehicle and storing the openable roof therein.
In general, in a roof structure of the vehicle equipped with an openable roof capable of opening and closing an upper portion of the vehicle, there is provided a fixing device to make a front portion of the openable roof be engaged with or disengaged from the striker provided at the front header when the openable roof closes the vehicle upper portion. This fixing device comprises a hook to be engaged with or disengaged from the striker at the front header and an operational lever to operate the hook. In a case in which the openable roof in a state where the hook of the fixing device is engaged with the striker at the front header (i.e., in a lock state) is stored in the storage partition at the vehicle's rear portion, the roof is operated in an open state by operating the operational lever so as to unlock the hook first, then the roof is moved rearward toward the storage partition at the vehicle's rear portion, and finally the roof is folded and stored into the storage partition. In this storage state of the openable roof, both the hook and the operational lever of the fixing device take their open positions.
In a case in which the openable roof in the storage state is moved upward and forward so as to close the vehicle's upper portion, the roof is closed keeping the hook and the operational lever of the fixing device in their open positions, and then the operational lever is operated so that the hook can be engaged with the striker at the front header (i.e., hooking). Subsequently, a free end of the operational lever is rotated forward so as to move the hook rearward, so that the hook can be completely engaged with the striker at the front header (i.e., locking).
According to the above-described conventional structure, however, two actions are required in order to make the hook be engaged with the striker at the front header as an engaged portion provided on a vehicle-body side (i.e., both an operation of the operational lever for getting the hook engaged with the striker and a forward-rotational operation of the operational level for completing the locking of the hook with the striker). Therefore, there is a problem in that the operability of the conventional structure may be inferior.
A fixing device of a roof member disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2013-249677 has been invented in order to solve the above-described problem. That is, this fixing device is configured such that the hook is selectable among three positions, i.e., a lock position, an open position, and a pre-lock position, according to the operation of the operational lever. Herein, the lock position is a position where the hook is completely engaged with the striker at the front header, the open position is a position where the hook is disengaged from the striker at the front header by being rotated rearward from the lock position, and the pre-lock position is a position where the hook is located between its lock position and its open position so as to be engaged with the striker at the front header. Meanwhile, there is a provided a rear frame which extends in the vehicle width direction at a front portion of the storage partition of the openable roof and has a convex-shaped cross section, and a press portion of the hook is formed at this rear frame. Herein, this fixing device is configured such that the hook having its open position is pressed against the press portion of the rear frame from above so that the hook can be changed from its open position to its pre-lock position.
According to the above-described conventional device disclosed in the patent document, since the hook of the fixing device is changed from its open position to its pre-lock position by being pressed against the press portion, in a case in which the roof in the storage state is moved upward and forward so that the roof can close the upper portion of the vehicle, the hook gets engaged with the striker at the front header without any operation of the operational lever when the roof is closed, keeping the hook in its pre-lock position. Accordingly, by rotating the free end of the operational lever forward, the hook is moved rearward, so that the hook can be completely engaged with the striker at the front header. Thus, the operability can be improved greatly.
However, the conventional device disclosed in the patent document has a problem described below. That is, since the openable roof is slightly twisted when being stored in the storage partition through a manual operation, it may be required to strictly set a relative position in both the vertical direction and the lateral direction (vehicle width direction) between the stored openable roof and the press portion at the rear frame. In this regard, there still exists room for improvement.